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TartanTantrum 
Forum Groupie 
Joined: August 17 2006 Location: Scotland Status: Offline Points: 62 |
 Topic: Your prog rock storiesPosted: March 06 2008 at 05:31 |
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Do you have any great prog rock stories you wish to share with everyone. Maybe you were at the first Marillion gig, or met Chris Squire in a bar and had a long chat with him. Basically anything that would make the rest of us jealous. I have three stories that I will post first.
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TartanTantrum
Forum Groupie
Joined: August 17 2006 Location: Scotland Status: Offline Points: 62 |
Posted: March 06 2008 at 05:51 |
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I found out about the Flower Kings in 1999 (quite by a bizarre accident but that is another story) and they were instantly propelled to one of my favourite bands. In 2001 they released the rainmaker and I noticed on their website that they were touring and one of their gigs was in Scotland. They were playing in a village about 10 mile from Glasgow, which I thought was a bit strange, but I headed into the ticket centre to pick up two tickets. They were numbered 3 & 4. Two weeks later I had persuaded two more friends to join me, and I offered to pick up tickets for them. I was rather alarmed to notice that the new tickets were numbered 15 and 16. In two weeks hardly any tickets had been sold! I telephoned the promoter to ask him if the concert would be going ahead. He assured me it would and I duly turned up with my friends. It was a pub! It did not have a stage, and the band were set up in a tight corner. I could not believe it. There was a merchandise table set up and as I did not Flower Power, I checked it out. The guy at the table had a long chat with me about the fact I did not know Garden of Dreams and how I was in for a treat later on. I bought Flower Power and then soon after the band began. The guy who sold me Flower Power turned out to be Tomas Bodin and when they played Garden of Dreams he kept looking at me to see if I was enjoying it. The point about this whole tale is that when I was younger (so much younger than today) I used to daydream about Yes or Genesis turning up at my local pub and playing their full set. I am convinced that had the Flower King been contemporaries of the aforementioned they would have been every bit as popular. Here I was in a pub with about 100 other people, standing 10 feet from a world class band playing the most sublime music. It will never be beaten in my mind - the best musical experience of my life.
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BaldJean
Prog Reviewer 
Joined: May 28 2005 Location: Germany Status: Offline Points: 10387 |
Posted: March 06 2008 at 06:12 |
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a common sight for us when we used to hang around pubs was Holger Czukay of Can carrying shopping bags; he lives in the area where most of the Cologne pubs are situated. we never actually talked with him though. somehow one does never think of prog musicians to have to do tasks like shopping, so seeing him carry the bags made him more human. you will come across portraits of Czukay a lot, by the way, when using the Cologne subway; the pillars of some of the subway stations have been painted with pics of VIPs of Cologne, and Czukay is among them.
Friede and I also had a talk with Dave Brock before a Hawkwind gig. not prog, but another musician we met a lot because he used to go to the same cafe to have breakfast as we is Wolfgang Niedecken of BAP; we had many a talk with him. we had the feeling he tried to make passes at us, but he bit on granite  . he also appears on the pillars of subway stations, by the way.of course I have to mention that we were at the reunion gig of VdGG at the Royal Festival Hall on May 6th 2005, where the album "Real Time" was recorded. Friede had an awesome experience with Peter Hammill some time before I first met her, but I'll leave it to her to tell about it |
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 A shot of me as High Priestess of Gaia during our fall festival. Ceterum censeo principiis obsta |
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TartanTantrum
Forum Groupie
Joined: August 17 2006 Location: Scotland Status: Offline Points: 62 |
Posted: March 06 2008 at 06:15 |
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I got into Genesis in 1972 when I was 14. At that tender age buying and album was a major purchase because they cost £2.25 and I only earned £1.50 a week on my paper round. It was therefore imperative to have a group of like minded friends who would buy the albums you couldn't afford. I was lucky in my street to have two friends who liked Genesis when I played the two albums I had, Nursery Cryme and Foxtrot. One of them bought Trespass and (the following year) Selling England and the other bought Live and From Genesis to Revelation. My memory is not good enough to recall if it was new or second hand, but it was the original, which is well documented only sold 650 copies. You can tell it is the original because it was in the all black cover with the gold lettering but has no band name on it, it is on thick, pre-oil crisis vinyl and has a lyric sheet and sleeve notes by Jonathon King. By the time I was 17 I had all the Genesis albums myself, except of course FGTR. I niggled away at my friend to sell me it and finally, when I was 18 he sold me it for £2. I still have it. The last time I played it was a couple of years ago when I ran it through a computrr program that converted it to digital so I could burn a CD of it.
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Paulieg
Forum Senior Member 
Joined: June 18 2005 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 934 |
Posted: March 06 2008 at 08:16 |
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I was in rehab with two members of Aerosmith. I won't mention names, but it was very interesting talking with them about music. I know Areosmith aren't prog or even prog related. Just thought I'd mention this. The bass player from Bon Jovi was there too but I didn't speak with him at all. Not a fan of them either.
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TartanTantrum
Forum Groupie
Joined: August 17 2006 Location: Scotland Status: Offline Points: 62 |
Posted: March 06 2008 at 08:46 |
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In 1997, a collegue I worked with asked me if I liked Yes. I replied that they were one of my all time favourite bands. He then said he had been having lunch with their road manager and had two complimentary tickets for their gig in a few days and I could have them. I was very excited and told me wife where I would be going on Saturday night. She reminded me we were going to our neighbours for dinner, and as we had already canceled twice, I was not going to "a stupid concert". I had intended to give the spare ticket to my brother but drastic measures were called for. I asked my neighbour (the bloke) if he liked Yes. He said he did and we persuaded our wives that we should go, but we would come straight home when it was finished. I had no intention of doing that because not only did I get tickets but back stage passes as well!
The gig was in Glasgow's new Clyde Auditorium, which I had not been to before, but was perfect for a band like Yes. There are twelve rows of seats at the front followed by a fifteen foot gap then our seats. Big comfy chairs with all that leg room - brilliant. My guest stated that he hoped they played Wondrous Stories and Don't Kill the Whale! It turns out he don't know Yes very well but once owned Going for the One - what a waste he had never heard of Heart of the Sunrise. When we sat down, I was next to a grey haired elderly lady which I found quite strange. However, it turned out it was Alan White's mother and we had a long chat about how well her boy had done. The only negative part of the evening, was when the concert finished and I suggested going back stage with our passes, my friend insisted we join our wives back at his house, as he had promised he would be straight home. I was devastated, but he had the car! Edited by TartanTantrum - March 06 2008 at 08:49 |
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aprusso
Forum Senior Member
Joined: June 16 2005 Status: Offline Points: 313 |
Posted: March 06 2008 at 10:08 |
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In 1992 or 1993 I went to my first IQ gig in a town close to Milan (many more followed since then....), having travelled with my friends from my hometown Venice. It was the "Ever" tour with the comeback of the great peter Nicholls after the dire years of Paul Menel. Anyway. We were queing outside the venue, and me and a friend wanted to go to the restrooms. The guy standing at the door let us in to use the venue WC. So there we were pissing, waiting to go back out, when a guy comes in the restroom and start shaving. My friends recognised him and tells me: he's Peter Nicholls, getting dressed and putting make up for the gig. When he tells me, I turn still with my penis in my hands (ald almost pissing on my shoes), and I ask him for an autograph.....
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Sit Ubu Sit
Forum Newbie 
Joined: August 25 2005 Status: Offline Points: 33 |
Posted: March 06 2008 at 11:02 |
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This happened not to me but to a former boss, but its still a pretty neat story..
A few years ago, Jethro Tull was on a rertospective tour, and they played a venue in Syracuse NY. There is a popular barbecue and blues joint , the Dinosaur Barbecue, a couple of bocks from where Tull was playing.
My boss was in a blues band and was playing a gig at the Dinosaur the same night as the Tull concert. After their concert, Ian Anderson and Martin Barre wandered into the Dinosaur, and asked if they could jam with the band for a couple of songs. My boss, having no idea who these people were, asked if they could play the blues. They assured that they were somewhat familiiar with the blues, and proceeded to join the basnd for a couple of tunes.
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Chicapah
Prog Reviewer
Joined: February 14 2006 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 8238 |
Posted: March 06 2008 at 12:28 |
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Back in '74 I attended a Yes concert in OKC with some fellow musicians/Yes freaks along with our slick, fast-talking booking-agent/manager. He was the only one of us who wore a suit and we didn't understand why until he came back from the floor with backstage passes. Seems he simply walked up to the security folks at the side of the stage, patted them on the backs and told them what a great job they were doing keeping out the "riffraff" and then strolled right past them as if he was a promoter or something. (Just shows you what business attire and balls will get you!) He took about three of our group with him to meet the guys in the band but I deferred to my keyboardist/best friend so he could meet and chat with his all-world hero, Rick Wakeman. He came back with polaroids of his visit for posterity and it probably remains one of his most memorable moments of all time. Just seeing his glowing face when he came back to his seat made me never regret giving up the chance to meet Yes. |
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"Literature is well enough, as a time-passer, and for the improvement and general elevation and purification of mankind, but it has no practical value" - Mark Twain
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Jim Garten
Special Collaborator 
Retired Admin & Razor Guru Joined: February 02 2004 Location: South England Status: Offline Points: 14693 |
Posted: March 06 2008 at 12:43 |
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Not strictly a prog story (depending on how you view the band concerned), and not even mine (I was only a couple of years old at the time).
In 1965(ish) - my father had dinner with The Beatles... Their management was concerned they had made no provision for their futures & decided to call in a pensions advisor to arrange cover for them - the company they contacted sent my father along to have dinner & arrange pensions... 1 - Dad hated The Beatles (more of a country & western / Jim Reeves fan) 2 - I like to think there are pieces of paper somewhere with The Beatles' signatures alongside my father's 3 - I wonder if Ringo & Paul are still drawing benefits from these policies 
Although he would only have been about 30 at the time, the upheaval in music from 1967 onwards went straight over his head, bless him (still, gave me a nice little story to put in his eulogy at the funeral) |
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Jon Lord 1941 - 2012 |
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: March 06 2008 at 12:44 |
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I've documented my brief brushes with the famous and talented before in other threads around here somewhere, though I could add that I have met ProgPowerUK Jon once or twice when he was in Mercury Rain, this is a story of a good friend of mine...
I've shared an office at work with a fellow engineer for the past 24 years, being 5 or so years older than me our musical tastes don't often coincide as he is of the opinion that anything recorded after 1973 is modern rubbish, but we do have that short 6 or 7 year window of music where we generally agree. He's an accomplished keyboardist and a pretty fair guitarist with an unhealthy Hendrix fixation in his own right and often ribs me on my own poor efforts on making music (his son, also a guitarist, is currently in several bands around Cardiff http://www.myspace.com/silenceatsea ). A couple of months ago he asked me if I had any Babe Ruth singles... "I think I've got a copy of Private Number somewhere." I shrugged. "Oh", he says despondently and changes the subject back to something work-related. A few weeks later he says "So, you haven't got Wells Fargo then...", (we know each other so well that conversations can often go like this - some have lasted years and don't look like concluding too soon), having recently bought the Breath of Fresh Air re-issue, I reply: "I've a copy of it on a Harvest compilation CD, I'll lend it you if you want", causing him to smile. But he shakes his head, "No, it's okay, I found a copy now" he says. "Right" I say, somewhat puzzled and go back to my work. A few weeks after that he takes several months of work for a bypass operation and one afternoon I call by his house to see how he's getting on. While he is showing me around his hi-fi system, pointing out the several harddisc media players he's set up around his house all fed from his home computer, I spy a Babe Ruth directory on one of them. "Babe Ruth" I state, somewhat redundantly. He smiles, "I've been collecting all their stuff on vinyl and needed Wells Fargo to complete the set." "Eh?" I say aghast, "that was their better known single." He returns a noncommittal shrug, hands me the remote and goes off to make coffee. So while were drinking coffee and listening to First Base, (though by now I'm itching to play the Warhorse tracks I've found in his system, since they had recently been added to the PA), I look at him and raise my eyebrows. "I was nearly in Babe Ruth," he says nonchalantly, causing me to almost drop my coffee mug in surprise, "...several times." "Get out of here!" I retort, a little lost for words. "Yeah, I knew Alan Shacklock quite well, we gigged around Hatfield together a bit before Babe Ruth." He then goes on to regale me with tales of the Hatfield music scene of the early 70s for the rest of the afternoon and I had to wait until my next visit to hear Warhorse...
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everyone
Forum Senior Member
Joined: January 09 2008 Status: Offline Points: 159 |
Posted: March 06 2008 at 12:58 |
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I attended a private high school in Atlanta back in the 70's. My brother and I were in our school uniforms. We walked in a bar in College Park to use the phone and met the members of Kansas. We sat and chatted with the members of the group for about 15 minutes. Many years later I went to see Faith No More before Warner Bros. released the Real Thing album in a small college bar and got to meet Mike Patton after the show.
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Frippertron
Forum Senior Member
Joined: October 09 2005 Location: England Status: Offline Points: 387 |
Posted: March 06 2008 at 18:07 |
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I have met Jimmy Carl Black, Jon Anderson, Chris Squire, Steve Howe, Billy Sherwood, Alan White..
Told Steve Howe he was a better guitarist than Trevor Rabin, he gave me a massive smile and said "Thank you very much" LOL.
Jimmy Carl Black was playing with the Zappa tribute band The Muffin Men, he was selling the CDs!!! (yep.. no lies!).. Great guy!
I wasnt too keen on Jon Andersons behaviour, he was so full of himself.
Chris Squire, a good laugh.. friendly bloke, and not at all how you would think he would act, very calm quietly spoken chap.
Alan White.. Pleasant guy, very friendly.
Billy Sherwood.. Very approachable and all round decent guy.
Also, met all members of Colosseum..
Jon Hiseman.. has time to chat and good listener.
Mark Clarke.. seemed a bit ignorant, probably was tired after long gig lol.
Dave Greenslade.. True gentleman, softly spoken.. LEGEND :)
Tony Reeves.. Seemed quite surprised that I realised who he was (he was there as a guest of Colosseum). Nice bloke.
Chris Farlowe.. Had a good laugh with him, loved the guy.. Brilliant.. "Surprised you didnt play OUT OF TIME Chris".. "Errr.. the band would have lynched me if I even tried it" LOL.
Unfortunately Dick Heckstall-Smith had passed away a month or so beforehand :( Barbara Thompson took over sax duties.
I am friends with 2 musicians who had a Top 10 hit in 2002, but they are not Prog.. so wont mention them lol Edited by Frippertron - March 06 2008 at 18:12 |
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The Cheerful Insanity of Prog Rock
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kiwi
Forum Senior Member
Joined: January 05 2008 Location: New Zealand Status: Offline Points: 127 |
Posted: March 06 2008 at 20:18 |
Great story. Down here in the antipodes we are off the beaten track - so I am far less likely to experience what you are able to in your world of adventures. However I did share a lift with guys from Linkin Park (not prog sorry). My daughter had to tell me who they were. I guess a more everyday experience has been using this site to reconnect with classic prog bands and finding new/old music to enjoy. Right now I am enjoying The Yes Album for the first time after being a yes fan for about 35 years. |
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We, verily, have made music as a ladder for your souls, a means whereby they may be lifted up unto the realm on high.. (Baha'u'llah) music |
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Run Home Slow
Forum Senior Member
Joined: August 20 2007 Location: Montreal Status: Offline Points: 265 |
Posted: March 06 2008 at 21:06 |
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I had the chance to talk with Daevid Allen of Gong for a 10 minutes when they came in Montreal for the second time on their First ever North American Tour... Saw them the first time in Montreal, than they came back to finish the tour... spoke with him on the second visit... one of the thing he asked me... is their was more people here than the first visit... 'cause they have been ripped of a bit on their money at the Club Soda on the first visit :-) He is really a nice guy, very approachable and easy to talk. He made a little Pot Head Pixie on my new CD just bought there.
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If you got ears, you gotta listen — Captain Beefheart
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Statutory-Mike
Forum Senior Member
Joined: February 15 2008 Location: Long Island Status: Offline Points: 3737 |
Posted: March 06 2008 at 21:48 |
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I went to a Dream Theater record signing in West Babylon and met them all, shook all of their hands, and got my Score dvd signed. It was a fun day, right before my first DT show at Jones Beach (the date was August 25, 2007)
That's my best prog related story, a bit dry to some of things everyone else is posting but still very exciting for me
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keiser willhelm
Forum Senior Member
Joined: September 14 2007 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 1697 |
Posted: March 06 2008 at 22:13 |
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i have no prog stories yet
 . . . (pending) but a my friend played guitar hero with Johnathan Davis of Korn. pretty cool, even if your not a fan of the band.
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Tarkus31
Forum Groupie
Joined: September 10 2007 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 98 |
Posted: March 06 2008 at 22:56 |
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The closest I come is that Carl Palmer and Geoff Downes signed my original vinyl cover of the Asia album after a concert. Both were really nice guys, particularly Carl.
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~~~Brian~~~
"And if we all did the things we knew to be right, left would be the childish fears of danger in the night." -Graeme Edge |
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TartanTantrum
Forum Groupie
Joined: August 17 2006 Location: Scotland Status: Offline Points: 62 |
Posted: March 07 2008 at 07:12 |
I have never seen IQ, although I only discovered them in 1999. They don't seem to play Scotland! |
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666 is no longer alone
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FranMuzak
Forum Senior Member
Joined: July 01 2007 Location: Mexico Status: Offline Points: 195 |
Posted: March 07 2008 at 13:34 |
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I had a funny experience with IQ too. I visited England on 2005 and it happened to coincide with a gig they were doing at the Robin 2, so of course i bought tickets and went. Once at the venue i first met this guy at the entrance who seemed to be part of the crew or the organization of the gig so i started asking him questions about timing, how full was it going to be, if there were seats or standing, etc. He answered everything very polite and kept working. After that when we were already inside, there was an opening act, which was John Young, and we were watching him and one guy was standing just beside me cheering and clapping. He looked familiar but i wasn't sure, so i got closer and then i realised that he was John Jowitt and started to chat with him a bit. He was very nice but he had to leave soon to get ready for their show. When they started playing i also noticed that the guy that i was speaking with at the gate was the new drummer of the band Andy Edwards and i didn't have a clue at that time. So at the end of the night i realised that i spoke with 2 IQ members without expecting it!
Other good experiences i had were at the BajaProg were i been going for the last 2 years. I had the chance to meet and chat with Pete Trewavas and Steve Rothery of Marillion, Yogi Lang and Kalle Wallner of RPWL, Thjis Van Leer of Focus, Wojtek Szadkowski and Sarhan Kubeisi from Satellite, Bryan Josh and Liam Davidson from Mostly Autumn, Jordan Rudess and many members from different bands like Indukti, Naikaku, Mar de Robles, Flor de Loto, Cast, Times Forgotten and Kinzokuebisu among others.
That's why i love so much that festival because you can share and chat with the musicians, so i hope i can make it this year too!
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TartanTantrum wrote: